Compass of the Times by Keiko Takahashi

October 2017

Compass of the Times 163

To Believe in Humanity

The Sense of “Inner Emptiness”

We live in the 21st century. Living in this era, we acquire and share particular feelings common to many of us.

That is, a feeling of inner emptiness. Nobody may, in reality, feel that their inside is literally “empty.”

However, let us think about it.

None of us, as humans, can speak, stand, or walk by ourselves when we are first born. In a sense, we start as powerless existences and can do nothing by ourselves.

From that point, in order to become who we are, we needed to absorb various things. As human beings, we are all required to do so without exception. In this we end up living a continuation of our current way of life. Is it not a part of our life to acquire knowledge, learn skills, and obtain qualifications for the purpose of having confidence in

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ourselves? Do we not develop the feeling that we have become a respectable person by obtaining or possessing something from the outside?

How do you feel? Is it not true that we are all tainted with the view that we have such an emptiness inside?

The problem is that when our minds are dominated by this view, we will be in a constant state of anxiety except when we are obtaining something from the outside.

To be more secure about our selves, we feel as if we must wear an armor of value higher than what we have now, and seek to obtain new things one after another. We become unsatisfied no matter how much we gain from out side as if we fell in “a state of starvation.”

The Sense of “Having the Soul at the Core”

The Study of the Soul1 advocates that “humanity should be viewed from the perspective of its soul” while the opposite viewpoint is to see humanity as having “inner emptiness.” If we adopt this former view of humanity, the way we perceive what human beings are will be reversed.

The inside of a person is never empty, but is filled with

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the soul: the core for the person to be human.

Of course, I do not mean to ignore the need to absorb things from outside world. As I referred to previously, human beings need to absorb many things from outside of themselves to survive. However, originally, it was not for the purpose of fulfilling the inner empty cavity, but for drawing out the power from within the soul. Whether it is for acquiring knowledge, learning skills or obtaining qualifications, these are merely the means to draw forth the inner power of the soul.

What “the view of humanity from the perspective of its soul” brings to us is the sense that “we have a soul at the core of ourselves; and everything begins because we have a soul.”

To Believe in Oneself, and To Believe in Humanity

It should be stated that nothing begins if we do not believe in ourselves.

Above all else we must believe in the self and humanity (those around us).
Of course, it is impossible for us to be perfect. The reality is that we have various shortcomings and immaturities. To believe in ourselves does not mean to

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unconditionally affirm or overly trust ourselves without criticism. It means to believe in the self who can further develop and evolve, regardless of how much problems we have at the moment. It also means to believe in the self who can change in order to do so.

I would like you to think as follows: “In our world, there exist as many stories that will begin from now as the number of people on our planet.”

Such stories are never the ones that are portrayed as a matter of course in the continuation of current realities. Nor are they the ones that are bound by the past we have lived. Those new stories are woven from a new mindset and changes that we have never experienced before.

To believe in the self and humanity (those around us) means to believe in the stories that will begin from now.

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Translator’s note

1. The Study of the Soul It is a study that enables us to comprehend our lives from the perspective of the dimension of the soul. It is also a system of truths and principles comprehensively known as the Divine Truth that is present in and permeates every aspect of the human soul and the world. As opposed to the “study of phenomena” that comprises only the tangible world, the Study of the Soul is an investigation of all things, including the formless and intangible world. (based on page 3 of The Reason Why You Were Born as You)